SWIMMING

MEMORY LANE

SWIMMING

BY R. AUBREY LA FOY

The other day I chanced upon the baby books for my sister’s and myself.  My Mother, Jean Holcomb LaFoy, was very diligent in keeping records of our first words, first walks and even locks of our hair. Wow! How mine has changed over the years from blond to brown to white. My baby book did not include when I first began to swim.

Do you remember when you first walk or talk? Probably not, but for many of you your first attempt to swim may not have occurred until you were grown or a teenager. In my case I cannot remember NOT swimming. My wife, Connie, didn’t learn to swim until we started to date and were married.

In my case my parents built and owned a cottage on Jones Beach in 1925 the year I was born. At that time is was named Milford Beach and was populated primarily by Milford citizens. My Uncle Ollie Holcomb was one of the founders and developers of Milford Beach. He worked out of a bank in Milford. He built a cottage on Milford Beach which was east or my parent’s cottage. Walter & Elizabeth Jones also built a cottage. Walter was a brother-in-law of Ollie Holcomb. Ollie’s’ wife was Blanch Jones Holcomb.

Milford or Jones Beach has a wonderful sand beach and it was no trouble for kids to play on the sand and venture out into the lake. I don’t recall learning to swim but remember diving from the dock and swimming under water to gather clams from the bottom of the lake. After bringing the clams to sore put them in a minnow bucket probably to die. I recall swimming under water long before I ever learned to swim on the surface of the water. I was not very old to remember swimming at Jones Beach as my parents sold their cottage in 1930 and built a cobblestone cottage in Maywood. The cobble stone cottage is still there just inside the middle stone pillars to the right.

My parents rented out their cottage in Maywood and many times when they went up to clean and mow the yard I would take the trail down to the lake and go swimming. It wasn’t as much fun as Jones Beach but it was fun to dive off the docks and swim around.

I don’t think people who live in or near the lakes really appreciate the advantage of ready access to swimming. Talking with many people who grew up on farms or small towns where they had no lakes it was a thrill to come to the Iowa Great Lakes and go swimming.

Owning a bathing suit was another obstacle for many but that was solved by being able to rent suits. The rental bathing suits were wool and not very attractive and as I recall one color-dark blue. People could rent bathing suits at Terrace Park in conjunction with the Casino. (One of the buildings that one could rent a bathing suit is still in existence on the beach at Boy’s Town.) Other places that rented bathing suits were Benit’s’ Park and there was also one rental facility on the north-west corner of the lake at Triboji Beach. Whether there was one on Big Spirit Lake I don’t know.

One could rent the bathing suit, get a wire basket, place your shoes and clothing, check it in and retrieve it when you returned from swimming. You were issued a metal tag with a number that matched your wire basket. Scuba divers and collectors have discovered many over the years on beaches and from the lake bottoms. Many of the rental facilities provided docks, diving boards, rafts and water wheels. I know there were water wheels, rafts and diving board at Terrace Park, Benit’s Park and also a Crescent Beach. Arnolds Park was the place to go as Benit’s constructed a diving tower and many times we went there to dive and “show off”. In the 1930’s young men were employed to be life guards at the beaches through the WPA. The “life guards” not only watched the swimmers but gave “life saving” lessons.

It was my privilege to take “life saving” lessons one summer at Benit’s’ Beach at Arnolds Park. Recalling how we were instructed to give and help a drowning victim is a far cry from today’s methods. I don’t think what we learned in the 1930s was far from rolling drowning victim  back and forth over a barrel but we laid the victim on their stomach, make sure there  tongue was okay and push just below the rib cage to extract the water at a steady count. In 1947 while going to Iowa State Teachers College in a course of First Aid they still continued the method I learned in the 1930s.

The skills (?) I learned in that “life saving” course I took in the 1930s came very useful over the years while living at Terrace Park. Somebody was always over extending themselves swimming. Shortly after taking the course (1930s) it was helpful in assisting a friend of mine who was going down the third time. I don’t know if what I did was correct but he is still alive after 70 years.

During World War II it was privilege to go swimming in the states and overseas. Swimming in a pool was s treat but give me open water anytime. I recall my first military camp was at Camp Dodge at Des Moines. The camp had a wonderful swimming pool and many of us from Dickinson County availed ourselves of that facility. My first permanent camp at March Field, California had a great swimming pool facility. We spent many a happy hours swimming in that pool especially as our part of the camp was in the desert and very dusty. Another facility that I availed myself was at Bombay, India. We had spent 33 days on a troopship from California via Australia and finally to Bombay. We were quartered at a camp in Bombay near the harbor. About three blocks from our camp was huge swimming facility that incorporated the ocean into swimming pool. Fortunately I always kept my bathing trunks so going to that pool in Bombay was real treat. The next time I could avail myself to a swimming pool was in early 1945. I was assigned to the 2459^th Quartermaster Truck Company that hauled military supplies over the Ledo-Burma Road from India to China. The Army Engineers tried to make our rest stops nice and provided showers or swimming holes. I recall the engineers had constructed a swimming hole near our rest stop. We had been driving all day and were tired and dusty and when we spotted that beautiful wonderful swimming hole nothing doing but jump in. I put on my swimming trunks, ran over to the side of the water and dived in. That was a mistake as the engineers had only dammed up a mountain stream that was just above freezing. It was a shock to the system but refreshing. Didn’t stay in long but it was great to get rid of all the dust and dirt.

We drove up to Kunming, China and from there took roads (?) to several western Chinese cities. I recall one evening we stopped along a shallow river and floated down about ½ mile, walked back up and did it over and over again. Another time we parked along a swift flowing stream and swam in that for a long time. We also washed our clothes.

When you grow up at the Iowa Great Lakes wherever you are you seek out swimming facilities. When we were attending college at Cedar Falls we availed ourselves to swimming facilities at Cedar Fall and also at Waverly, Iowa. We have also swum in Clear Lake, White Bear Lake, Gull Lake, Spirit Lake, Pacific Ocean, Atlantic Ocean, Gulf Of Mexico, Texas, Mexico and Hawaii.

We have two Olympic style swimming pools where we live in the winter. The “heated” pools are really used. Believe it or not I get into West Okoboji at least once each summer, when it is hot. When I was a kid living in Milford we tried to be the “first” to go swimming in Lake West Okoboji in the spring but no more. Our two granddaughters, Becca and Sonja LaFoy have carried on the tradition and try to be the first to go swimming at White Bear Lake, Minnesota after the ice goes out. I like “heated’ pools.